Ariel Castro found dead in prison cell

The "house of horrors" kidnapper who imprisoned three women in his Cleveland home for up to 10 years has been found hanged in his prison cell.

Ariel Castro, 52, was found dead at the Ohio Rehabilitation and Corrections facility in Orient, Ohio, at 9.20pm local time, 10TV reports.

A spokesman from the prison said Castro, who was isolated from other prisoners at the jail for his own protection, died of an apparent suicide.

"[Castro] was housed in protective custody which means he was in a cell by himself and rounds are required every 30 minutes at staggered intervals," prison spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said in a statement.

"Upon finding inmate Castro, prison medical staff began performing life saving measures. Shortly after he was transported to OSUMC where he was pronounced dead at 10:52 pm."

Castro was sentenced on 1 August to life in prison plus 1000 years for the abductions of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight.

The three women, who disappeared between 2002 and 2004, were locked up and kept as sex slaves by the former school bus driver.

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Lured into the car of a man they knew as the father of a friend or classmate at the ages of 20, 16, and 14, the women suffered violent beatings and repeated rapes.

Castro was arrested and charged with rape and other crimes after a frantic Amanda Berry escaped the home on May 6 with the help of a neighbour.

Castro, who pleaded guilty after prosecutors agreed to take the death penalty off the table, offered an apology to his victims but never truly showed remorse.

"I am not a monster. I was sick," Castro said to the court, insisting he was addicted to sex and pornography.

He also insisted the women were lying when they said he beat them, declaring "I am not a violent person."

"Most of the sex that went on in the house, probably all of it, was consensual," Castro claimed.

"There was times they would even ask me for sex, many times. These girls were not virgins."

The judge dismissed Castro as a "extremely narcissistic" and said the 53-year-old should never emerge from jail.

Knight, who was snatched off the street in 2002 at the age of 20, made an emotional statement to the court saying a death sentence would have been "so much easier" for her tormenter.

"I spent 11 years in hell, and now your hell is just beginning," Knight said to Castro.

Shortly after the girls were set free, shocking details of life inside the "house of horrors" emerged.

Amanda Berry, now 27, gave birth to her daughter Jocelyn in a small inflatable pool inside Ariel Castro's Cleveland home so the mess would be "easier to clean up".

More than 42kg of chains were found in the filthy, darkened home where the women were kept in locked rooms with boarded up windows.
At least one victim was chained to a wall "like some kind of trophy", a police source said.

Just as horrifying were the stories the thin, pale and bruised women told upon their release.

"The damage that was done was a life sentence," psychiatrist Frank Ochberg testified.